How we do ANYTHING is how we do EVERYTHING.

Personal Integrity doesn’t take a vacation. It’s an integral part of ourselves we’ve either developed or we haven’t, and it regulates and influences every choice and decision we make throughout our lifetime.

If we aren’t willing to make hard decisions, we’ll only make the easy ones~ which typically result in instant gratification (that’s their payoff), but we’ll never grow our character or integrity. Our capacity for delayed gratification is cumulatively gained thru life experience and maturation. An infant or small child has no ability to be patient or wait for a treat. They want it NOW, and may throw a temper tantrum to get their way~ and so it goes, for one who is Borderline Personality Disordered.

When I describe Borderlines as toddlers living in adult bodies, you can interpret this literally. They have no impulse control, no sense of boundaries, and no empathy. Empathy (different from sympathy) is the ability to identify with and relate to another’s inner experiences, perspectives and pain~ not just feel sorry for ‘em. A BPD male or female is incapable of doing this, because they are severely underdeveloped, emotionally dysregulated and unbalanced, and like a toddler, cannot consider anyone else’s needs or feelings but their own.

I view this fact as incredibly ironic, as millions of psychotherapists are charged with the task of helping their patients or clients, without having resolved/healed their own core trauma and BPD traits. The problem with wanting to enter a helping/healing profession, is that until you’ve cleaned up the mess in your own backyard, you should never start on someone else’s! (Thanks, Daddy.)

In short, someone who is still broken and unhealed is not emotionally nor experientially equipped to heal and resolve the wounds another has carried lifelong! Seems like a simple concept, right? Have you ever asked yourself why people have endured years, even decades of psychotherapy, and are still struggling with the same obstacles and issues they intended to rid themselves of initially? (Yeah, me too.)

You’d be utterly shocked to learn how many clinicians are borderline personality disordered and pathologically codependent. I’ve seen this peculiar dual-diagnosis among many colleagues/former friends, and it’s far more common than not. I suppose folks are drawn to these professions in hopes of understanding their own long-standing pain. They might arrive at some worthy insights along the way~ but ‘insight’ has never helped someone truly heal. If it had, would millions on our planet continue to be ‘In Treatment’ indefinitely?? Here’s where some common sense might be kicking-in for you (God willing).

I’ve always encouraged my clients to fully feel and express their disappointment and/or anger toward me, and I consider it a victory in our work when they finally do! Some will never let themselves either cry or rage, and I see this as their unwillingness or inability to evolve into being fully-feeling, self-actualized, adults.

Some have retained passive aggressive traits, and are still afraid and reluctant to openly express their truth, if/when their feelings get a bit ruffled. This deficit will follow them lifelong in any/all relationship attempts, and create serious obstacles to building intimacy with another.

Others might spontaneously let out their anger in verbally abusive ways to the extent it seems like they are intent on sabotaging their current relationship (as Borderlines are prone to do, when they start to feel a little too close to someone, even if it’s the professional assisting them). There’s no excuse for abuse, but people with BPD traits can be boundary-less when venting their anger/rage, so it’s a toss-up as to whether a relationship can sustain itself past one of these episodes. Add to this, recurrence is common (as is spousal abuse).

Clients with BPD traits routinely ‘test’ their relationships, to determine how far they can stretch the envelope. In doing so, they either burn-out the clinician by being non-compliant with treatment, or launching a resentful, wrath-filled, toxic verbal onslaught on somebody who’s trying to help them. Under these circumstances, an individual on the receiving end of a sudden vitriolic attack may determine that remaining engaged will serve neither of them.

The infantile Borderline can’t seem to ‘connect the dots’ in terms of viewing the object of their vitriolic ambush as a “horrible, unfeeling, narcissistic, incompetent, unscrupulous” person, and choosing to remain attached! I mean, what reasonably normal, emotionally sound individual would accuse another of the most heinous intentions and behaviors, and wanna stick around?! Our typical response to their barrage of insults might be, “if I’m as horrible a person as you say I am, why the fuck are you still here?!”

I’m sure a lot of you have been faced with this confounding question, if there’s ever been a Borderline in your life. A solid professional understands that WHO someone is in their interpersonal world, is who they will ultimately be in treatment. Come-here-go-away games are part of the therapeutic landscape when dealing with clients who have BPD traits. No matter how sweet, caring or brilliant these clients appear, there are core-wound defenses they’ve built over a lifetime, which permeate everything they do, and create obstacles in all their relationships~ both personally and professionally. This remains true, until those (survival) defenses are no longer needed, because the client has grown a healthy, autonomous, rock-solid sense of Self.

Anger is the most passionate, energizing, activating, enlivening emotion we humans have access to, in our feeling repertoire. Experiencing feelings of anger or rage and expressing them, is always a healthy and life-affirming action~ unless it’s entered into like a bull in a china shop, without any regard for how one’s words can make another sense that staying connected feels like an emotionally dangerous option.

I’ve coached thousands of clients on how to approach difficult conversations and confrontations. It’s simply part of the work I’ve done for decades. It’s a life-skill power tool that many have lacked, which perpetuates setbacks and obstacles they’ll face (including physical disorders) until they develop genuine confidence and comfort in the arena of effective, intimate communication.

Solid communication skills, the ability to speak openly about our feelings or needs, and the willingness to say “ouch” and confront when necessary if someone steps on our toes, is at the foundation of any and all gratifying relationships. OR, you can keep all that shit inside and deeply buried, until it spews forth like red-hot, molten lava from a long-dormant volcano that finally erupts, destroying everything in its path.